Mustang Field, four miles south of El Reno, Oklahoma. The year is 1943. Young men are learning to fly the Fairchild PT-19 — open cockpit, wood-winged, beautiful and demanding — over the flat prairie of Canadian County.They didn’t just materialize. Somebody had to get them there. And this, it turns out, is one of the most fascinating stories we get to tell here at The Caldwell Collection.

For many antique aviation aficionados, hearing that an airplane has been acquired by a museum is a sad event. We know that in a very literal sense, that airplane has gone somewhere to die. It will become a static display — slowly decaying beneath its shiny paint, its capabilities eroding until one day it will be impossible for it ever to take flight again. At the Caldwell Collection, we believe our aircraft should come here not to die, but to fly.

Mustang Field, four miles south of El Reno, Oklahoma. The year is 1943. Young men are learning to fly the Fairchild PT-19 — open cockpit, wood-winged, beautiful and demanding — over the flat prairie of Canadian County.They didn’t just materialize. Somebody had to get them there. And this, it turns out, is one of the most fascinating stories we get to tell here at The Caldwell Collection.

But that wasn't my last encounter with Marla or her biplane. The very next year, sitting in my hotel room, bored, in advance of a business meeting, I was scrolling through the Barnstormer ads when her name jumped off the page. The UPF 7 was for sale again!